Before answering this question, let's look at a real case.
Random scam
A man in America received an anonymous letter on June 5438+10 in a certain year, saying that the stock market would rise this month. As a result, the stock market really rose. At first, he didn't care much, thinking that either the blind cat caught the dead mouse or the "January effect". This so-called "January effect" was discovered by many scholars. In the American market, there is a phenomenon that the stock market will soar from 65438 to 10 every year.
Well, as a result, in early February, he received another letter saying that the stock market was going to fall. As a result, it really fell in February. Then in March, April and May, at the beginning of each month, he will receive such a letter. Amazingly, he is right every time. This convinced him that this anonymous letter really had foresight on the stock market.
In July, he received this anonymous letter again, inviting him to invest in an overseas fund. The brother invested all his savings. Two months later, the money disappeared and never came back. This must be a scam.
In fact, in China, it is estimated that there are many similar scams. What are liars using? Is the randomness of things.
You see, bullish and bearish are actually 50% probability. The swindler found 20,000 people in the phone book, sent bullish letters to 1 10,000 people, and sent bearish letters to 1 10,000 people. Regardless of the ups and downs, 654.38+00000 people will always receive the correct letter. In the second month, we will send letters to 654.38+00000 people who received the correct forecast letters. Of course, this time, 5000 people received the correctly predicted letter and then sent it to these 5000 people. In the next few months, we will send letters to those who receive letters with correct predictions. A few months later, there were only 600 people left on the list. But at this time, many people have been convinced of the accurate prediction ability of this anonymous letter. As long as there are 100 people in it, the scam will end perfectly, and the postage of thousands of dollars will be exchanged for millions.
This scam used to be very popular all over the world, and many middle classes were looted. In this story, the liar took advantage of randomness.
Then you may think, I already know such a clumsy scam, and it will definitely have nothing to do with me in the future. But in fact, in the financial market, random traps can be seen everywhere. Many times you have been involved, but you don't realize it.
For example, a company's performance for several consecutive quarters is particularly dazzling, and then some analysts must recommend you to buy it. After you bought it, you found that his performance was not so good. In addition, an analyst said the right direction two or three times in a row, that is, a star analyst, and everyone would follow him, but later he was wrong. Also, a fund had a good rate of return for a while and was immediately praised as a star fund. Everyone followed this fund.
Look, are you familiar with these phenomena?
In retrospect, these phenomena appear more frequently in the bull market, which makes you feel more taken for granted. If you put the money in, the result is the same, and your money will never come back. Unconsciously, you have stepped into the trap of randomness.
The most easily overlooked part of investment is called randomness, or contingency. Almost all investment masters, including Buffett and Max, as well as the famous scholar and investor Taleb, the authors of Black Swan and Random Walk for Fools, have taught us that investment is not a place that completely abides by logic and order. In the financial market, randomness or luck plays a huge role in our investment results. Therefore, we must learn to recognize the role of luck in investment results so as not to be fooled by randomness.